I'm so mad because work got crazy just as I wanted to jump into these.
I'm about halfway through book 2 now so I can't say too much there. I do want to say that the one thing I like most from book 1 is how much better Kwin's story feels. It was always good, but now it feels less about how emotional her story is and more about how it got there, if that makes sense. Her conversation with Kai is better than I remember but then also Kai's conversations with her dad also add so much more. It feels more about
both of them now, how she was hurting and didn't feel listened to, how he was trying but was overwhelmed and barely hanging on, and also how he's kind of old fashioned and just didn't know how to deal with depression like that. He didn't come to her to ask her to wake up because he was trying to brush her feelings under the rug, he did that because he was at the end of his rope and didn't know what to do. They were both hurt and scared and overwhelmed and I feel that so much better in this rewrite, and it makes them reconnecting feel a lot more satisfying. Rewriting the library scene felt better too because now it's less about a wakeup call for Kwin and more like helping her understand that she isn't stuck anymore, that it's ok that she's afraid but now she has other people to lean on, and it makes sense that Kwin doesn't really get that because she's never been used to having friends, this is all new territory for her. Like she even said at the end, being friends with Kai was what made her feel doubt about ending her life, and that doubt scared her. Anyway lol all this to say that the story with her and her dad feels a lot better now which is great because it was already the best part of book 1 for me.
I might go into the main story later but I had to get this out.
Speaking of Kwin too I noticed that all of the mirror world characters' names started with the same letter as the real people, like Alan for Alastor. I was wondering why Abigail was the only exception, and then I realized that when Kwin entered the dream for the first time she didn't have her nickname yet, so Abigail would only have memories of her name being Ashley. I thought that was a cute little detail.